Dense forest

[rickier65]

ORIGINAL: Ratzki

Woods is such a varied terrain to try to pin down a way to represent LOS ect. properly. You can have trees that are 8 inches dia. spaced 24 inches apart with small dead braches that interlock between trees that make for a wall of darkness only a few yards from your location, as well as huge blowdown lines 10 feet+ high ringed with brush and interspersed with larger spaced trees that would block LOS just as effectively. Where I live, I have hunted in 2+ feet deep moss with larger trees (36+ inches dia.) with low growth underbrush that is just about as restricted as far as LOS would be concerned as the other two examples. I think that LOS could be based on the depth of the terrain as opposed to the tree structures themselves. Each pixiel/tile of terrain could modify chances of seeing through to the next one until after enough pixels/tiles are passed through that the chances effectively become zero. This could still have some variation built in and yet be somewhat more predictable, as well, it might make it easier on the system resources as a bonus.

I agree with your comments concerning the variability of woods terrain. Particularly the way in which brush and other undergrowth impacts LOS in and through wooded areas. We can create maps for PCO that utilize some of the concepts you describe above, using the depth of the terrain as a factor in determining LOS.

Jacko1 is working on a scenario using a map that makes use of a combination of that technique together with the standard way that actual tree models block terrain. I'm anxious to see how it turns out and how the performance is.

Thanks
rick

[Ratzki]

I am a big map fan so freeing up system resources is behind my train of thought. My other thought would be to create tree tiles that fit together like puzzle pieces or a hex grid. This way they could still be placed like any other structure but varied orientation and an assortment of tiles could create treed areas that would not look patterned. This could also reduce the number of structures on the maps and free up resources.

[Mobius]

We don't have any good winter forest underbrush.  I don't know if it all dries out and dies but the woods in the winter maps look bare.

[sztartur2]

In the past years I frequently played in the woods (Airsoft is someone knows about that) In winter there are the bush like undergrowth fully naked without leaves, snowed but still there. In thick forest there should be a lot of barren bushes from 20cm till even 200cm high depending on the thickness the map designer wants. LOS is not that restricted like in summer but almost. Especially when snowed LOS is much restricted, a bit lesser if not.